Actinia

In the shallow waters beyond the West African coast, a swarm of plankton followed the Pacific current into the mouth of a beadlet anemone. The anemone absorbed the small crustaceans and diatoms that composed the particulate zoo, unthinking. Hours later, it excreted its waste from the same orifice. It did so with the same lack of thought that furnished the waste, not due to a lower order of mind but to the same efficiency that compels the Actinia equina to grow only one hole to do its business. Such efficiency eliminates the need for deliberation where its place on the coral reef is concerned. Putting more thought into finding a sunny perch to anchor to, where the currents are strong, is unnecessary and pretentious. And no one has ever accused an anemone of pretension.

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"All the while I have been forgetting the third of my reasons for remaining so faithful a citizen of the Federation, despite all the lascivious inducements from expatriates to follow them beyond the seas, and all the surly suggestions from patriots that I succumb. It is for the reason which grows out of my medieval but unashamed taste for the bizarre and indelicate, my congenital weakness for comedy of the grosser varieties. The United States, to my eye, is incomparably the greatest show on earth."